The first gay Chechen to get such a visa arrived in Germany on Tuesday, and four other applications for the visas are currently being reviewed.

LGBT activists in Germany have been pushing for the move ever since the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta revealed that around a hundred gay and bisexual men in Chechnya, a federal subject of Russia, were being held in secret detention centers. In the ensuing weeks, more reporting showed that homophobic repression was rampant in the country.